Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

176 • Herlina Hartanto
problems that they wanted to address in an adaptive and collaborative
manner. The problems were prioritised to make effective use of the limited
resources available (Table 6-2).
Table 6-2. Priorities identified by people’s organisations and local
stakeholders
Palawan
1. Conflict over boundary of community
forest with neighbouring Batak
community forest
Bukidnon
1. Lack of alternative livelihood
options
2. Lack of support from barangay leaders
to community forestry
2. Lack of medicine at barangay
health center
3. Low participation by PO and 3. Weak forest management
community members in forest
management
4. Lack of alternative livelihood options 4. Poor local governance
5. Government policies that hinder
forest management
6. Lack of collaborative monitoring
system
Formation of action learning teams
In Palawan, the PO’s board of directors (five men and four women) decided,
following a facilitated consultation process, that they would be the main
group who would engage in every step of the ACM process. In Bukidnon,
we proposed that the PO invite other community groups and other barangay
residents to participate in the process. The interested participants then
formed four groups of about 15 people each, based on their interests; each
was in charge of addressing one of the four prioritised issues.
Throughout the project, the team also encouraged these action learning
groups to identify other stakeholders who should be invited to participate
in the processes. To prevent domination by more ‘powerful’ stakeholders,
the team first attempted to strengthen the PO members’ confidence to deal
with such stakeholders by improving their analytical and communication
abilities. The learning processes were gradually expanded to include other
stakeholders through multistakeholder discussion forums.